One Thing Stood Unbreakable
by JensenAnea
Summary: Another story about Ikuto's return, in which Amu is unaware she is getting Ikuto from the airport and the ride home leads into a heartwarming confession and starts there brilliant life together. Fluffy with a little angst [if you squint] and a little OOC angsty, stoic Amu and OOC caring, affectionate Ikuto. [Please Review if you want more Amuto from me]. One-Shot


Unbreakable

I was quickly growing bored and impatient. Not that I ever had patience _before, _but this was becoming insufferable. I couldn't stand being bored, and I seemed to have no control over my bouncing leg that made me look more anxious than I actually was. I'll admit it, overly crowded places made me a bit nervous, but they never used to. I never used to be so anxious or worn out. I used to be bubbly, happy, albeit a bit annoying and overly-optimistic. But then, high school happened and suddenly I was thrown into the real world, where everyone wore stoic expressions behind false smiles and never seemed to be _not _tired. And I was becoming just like the rest of them.

Sleeping was out of the question, it was more like I would sleep for a whole day as soon as my body passed out from exhaustion. It was beginning to worry my friends, as the bags under my eyes were getting to heavy to be concealed by make up. They made me look older, and not in a good way. I was looking and acting more like the adult I used to be terrified of becoming. Of course, I wasn't there _yet _because I still had my Guardian Charas, but they were becoming nervous as well. I was going to be a junior in high school, and so I was just counting the days until I would never see those girls again.

I looked down in my lap and checked my phone for the umpteenth time, waiting for Utau to send me a picture of a face or a description of who I was looking for. She said they were flying in from America, so I was waiting for the call of that plane.

Utau had asked me last weekend if I could pick her friend up from the airport for her, and, as usual, I couldn't decline. Then, she forced me to eat some food, telling me not sleeping and not eating like I should was going to kill me. I had just laughed dryly and stomached little box of pocky she gave me.

I never used to be so unhealthy, but that was before. Now, my parents were losing money so I had to work jobs. One that was a regular and then as many odd jobs as I could. I had to watch Ami at the same time, because they were working non-stop. On top of that, I had to juggle school work and doctors appointments because – _apparently – _something was wrong with me. I guess my sleeping habits had developed into an actual thing called "insomnia", not that I knew what that was. They think it stemmed off from my anxiety. So, while they tested different pills on me like some kind of lab rat, I wasn't really eating.

I was getting more and more bored, more and more anxious. I closed my eyes and pictured my mom's face when she first learned about my issue. She kind of knew about the anxiety, but she had no idea how severe it was. Not until she woke me up to tell me it was a snow day and nearly screamed when she found me. My room was littered with papers. So many, in fact, you couldn't see the floor. Some were haphazardly taped up on walls, dangling there and floating when the breeze came. I was still scribbling, my eyes wide up and the bags completely untouched by make-up.

My eyes fluttered open and I grinned with amusement.

I noticed a new flood of people come through and blinked owlishly. Turning to my right, I tapped the shoulder of the older gentleman reading the newspaper. I smiled apologetically. "Sorry to interrupt you, but uh, wha-what plane just landed?"

He smiled warmly. "No problem, child. The one coming in from the States. And didn't anyone ever tell you sleep could do ya some good?" He chuckled and waved a dismissive hand at the joke, turning back to his newspaper.

I blinked again and sighed. I scanned the crowd, but I'd always been short. I couldn't see anything other than what was right in front of me. Groaning in annoyance, I stood up from the bench and dug into my pocket for some money. After counting all I had, I walked over to the racks with the food. I could really use some candy. I stretched my arms behind me and winced as my back cracked audibly. I didn't sleep so I didn't have a good posture, or so my mom said. Like good posture would encourage me to sleep, or something.

I checked my phone again while I scanned the candy. Of course, my eyes caught my favorite candy on the _top _shelf.

I huffed, scowling at the teasing box that sat just out of my reach. I tried searching all the shelves, seeing if I came up with anything better. Of course, nothing was better than the skinny blue box on _that _shelf. The one that taunted the vertically challenged, like myself.

"Of course, _of course _it's on the top shelf. I _hate _being short!" I groaned, and then looked around to make sure no one heard my short outburst. Apparently, no one had heard or seen it. My eyes caught onto something blue, a deep, familiar blue I used to call by the owner's name, but he was long gone. My eyes tried to follow it, but it left as soon as it came. I furrowed my brow and narrowed my eyes in the general direction it had come from and then turned back to my task of trying to reach my candy.

Planting my feet firmly on the ground, I reached my arm up and wriggled my fingers around like that would make it come to me by some magnetic force. I rolled my eyes at my one stupidity and pushed up onto my tip-toes. Of course, that did little because I was in heeled ankle boots and was already on my tip-toes. Since I become self-conscious of my height, I'd taken to wearing heels, especially boots. I could feel my black leggings hug closure to my lower half as I strained my legs to grow a few inches so I could reach my prize. With a frustrated grunt, I relaxed and let my arm swing with remaining momentum at my side.

My eyes narrowed dangerously and I looked to my left, then my right. With a mischievous smirk, I planted one foot onto the bottom shelf and pushed off it to grab my candy. Somehow, it still managed to evade me.

"Are you _freaking_-" As I was about to exchange my last word for a strong-worded grunt, a muscled arm wrapped around my small waist and lifted me off the shelf. Then, I watched an arm that was exposed to the elbow before being covered by a deep gray – almost black – jacket reach up and grab the second, not first, box of my favorite candy. I was set down on my feet and released, then handed my candy. After smiling at it like a little kid who just got the blue sucker while her sister got the green one, I looked up thankful at the helper. "Thank-" The last word clogged my throat and I sputtered.

I hadn't been hopefully imagining that flash of blue, if I had just marked that off as wishful thinking. No, that _Ikuto Blue _puff I saw and lost in the crowd was real and here. In the flesh.

"There is no way..." I mumbled, and then looked down at my phone when it buzzed.

It was Utau.

_Ikuto_.

I looked up sharply at the smirking boy who seemed to be examining me. Of course, I'd changed a lot since he last seen me. I was thinner, but that wasn't good. I had bags under my eyes that I'd forgotten to cover with make up because I usually become forgetful at the early hours of the morning, even if I wasn't tired. It was around four now, so I'd left around two or three. My hair was just a bit longer, because I liked it pretty short. It wasn't clipped back, just casually falling down my back and a little in my face. My look wasn't as _cool'n'spicy _as it had been when I was younger. I put little thought into what I wore anymore. Some some boots, black leggings I basically lived in, and a blue-and-white, oversized _Julliard _hoodie.

"Someone grew up." Was the first thing he said, giving me an _almost _caring smile, his eyes stuck just a smidgen below mine, at the bags that was making me look old and worn out, like an adult. I counted the years, remembering our age gap, and gasped silently when I figured it out. Ikuto was almost twenty-two... wow.

I looked down and gave a tight smile. "C'mon, let's go." I couldn't really say more, and we walked in silence to the luggage conveyor belt. He grabbed a black duffel bag and a gray suitcase. Then, we walked in the same silence to my car, a beat-up Toyota Tundra from some odd single-digit year I couldn't recall at the moment. When we both got in the car, the tension could've been cut by a knife and even the overly-chipper voices of morning talks shows on the radio didn't alleviate any of it. And we had a forty-five minute drive home.

Finally, he nudged the dial down and I could see him look at me from the corner of my eyes. Suddenly, my knuckles grew white unintentionally over the steering wheel and, though my eyes were tight on the road, almost all my focus was on him. "Amu," He said smoothly, and I felt goosebumps rise on the back of my neck and I sat a little straighter, even if it hurt.

"Hmm?" I asked, trying best not to use my voice that would undoubtedly give away my anxiety and discomfort.

He sighed. "How have you been?"

"Fine." I lied through my teeth, and turned my head just a little bit more a way in case he could catch something on my face to give away that fact, if it wasn't my tight voice. "Um," I swallowed thickly. "how was America?"

"Entertaining, to say the least. It's a whole different world over there."

I just "hmm"'d in response and tried to make my hands relax. When the tension began to strangle me again, I shifted uneasily. "Uh, where's Yoru?" I asked.

I turned shortly to see Ikuto hold up the familiar black and white egg. "Sleeping. He's not too keen with flying." Ikuto briefly explained, before tucking the egg back into a pocket of the duffel bag at his feet.

My smile was lowering, become strained. "Utau hasn't stopped talking about you coming all week. Not that she told me it was _you_, specifically, but now it makes sense why she was so pumped."

"She didn't tell you I was moving back?"

My throat clenched. "You're _moving _back?"

He nodded, looking out the wind shield now. "Yeah, I'm moving into the apartment Utau uses when she's in Japan. I guess I've really missed everyone. Missed home."

My shoulders locked up awkwardly and I winced. That was unsettlingly _close _to where I lived. Now, I'd have to reroute around that building so Ikuto didn't see me walking at late hours. That was suspicious.

"That's nice." I said flatly.

"Amu."

I turned my head sharply. "Yeah?"

He narrowed his cobalt eyes over me, almost looking around. "What are you doing?"

I blinked. "... Driving?"

He snickered. "No, stupid. That's not what I meant."

I glowered. "I'm not stupid, Ikuto. Then, what _did _you mean?"

He smirked. "You're knuckles are white, do you even realize you're shaking." He pointed out, and then he reached out to brush a thumb along my cheek bone. "You're really pale too, and thin. Did you get thinner?"

I nodded wordlessly, leaning away from his touch even if I desperately wanted to lean into it.

He blinked at me before grinning. "And then there's the bags. What happened to you?"

I gritted my teeth together. "Nothing."

"Obviously not."

"Drop it Ikuto." I even shocked myself how defensively and angry I sounded. I've never snapped at Ikuto like that. Not when he wasn't in the wrong.

The fault in the situation was the fact that, _somehow_, Ikuto figured out how unfamiliar I was with this car. Being the sly cat he is, his hands nearly blurred as he took hold of the steering wheel and edged us off the road before pushing some odd button or pulling a lever and the car stalled.

Flabbergasted, I gaped through the windshield before turning and hitting him with an open palm on the head. He scowled at me, rubbing what I hoped would become a bruise. "You idiot! What the hell was that? You stalled up! Fuck!" I slapped a hand over my mouth. I've only ever heard Kukai and Utau say the f-word directly. Of course, I've heard it in music and in school among students, but I've never said it before. Almost, but never.

Ikuto stared at me before smirking. "I didn't know you curse."

I glared at him. "I didn't. You're just infuriating me to the point I don't even know what I'm saying. What the heck did you do to my car?" I cautiously checked for any of the hazard lights to blink on. When none did, I let out a sigh of relief.

"Just stalled it, that's all. You can force that if you know what you're doing. Now, you're going to talk to me. What's happened to so drastically change you?"

I leaned my head back against the headrest and smiled humorlessly. "It's been four years, Ikuto. A lot can happen in that time."

"Then, tell me what has happened. For starters, why do you look so sick? Utau's been complaining about how unhealthy you look. I wouldn't have believed her if you weren't sitting here now." This time, when he reached out to touch me, it was so gentle I wanted to cry. He edged my face toward him to look at me better, but I couldn't meet his eyes. I watched the faint glow on the plastic of the dashboard fade as the overhead light slowly turned out.

I breathed shakily. "I guess I'm sick." I shrugged helplessly.

Ikuto put his other hand on the back of my knee and drew me a little closer. "What do you mean you're sick?"

Had the situation not been so tense and serious, I might've blushed. "I don't really sleep... or eat... only when my body draws to the brink of combustion. I sleep when I pass out, and I eat when I start dry heaving. They say it's anxiety, and that this has all stemmed off of it, but... I don't know. Haven't really felt like me since... I can't even remember." I laughed bitterly. "Nothing is all that bad in my life. Friends are still here, except Utau when she's touring, and my family is okay. Nothing seems to be wrong but... me. I'm becoming exactly what I used to fear." Finally, my eyes swiveled to the right until they locked onto the glowing cobalt. So, his eyes even glowed in the dark like a cat. I couldn't help the small smile that followed the revelation.

I looked right past him and out the window, seeing where we turned off at. Just a big lake, a reservoir. On a dime, I spun in my seat and unlocked my door. I pushed out and let the cold, almost biting late-fall breeze touch me. In the city, you can't really see the stars. But here...

I grinned at Ikuto who was watching me with a look cross between amusement and confusion as I climbed up onto the hood and then hopped onto the top of the car. I bent over the side and grinned upside at Ikuto through the open window. "C'mere. It's really cool." I told him.

Instead of opening the car door, he simply crawled out the window and up onto the roof with me. "You're still as crazy and spontaneous as I remember." He grunted, pulling himself up onto the roof. "What is it?"

I pointed up and we both turned our chins up to look at the galaxy that encased us. It was astonishing, as always. I made an effort to sit off to the side of the road when I come into rural areas, and there was a large rural space between where I live and the airport. Stars blinked at us in many colors, but it was hard to catch unless you stared intently. Some of the planets glowed in brilliant, solid colors, like stars themselves. I felt a sense of relief, a moment without anxiety or insomnia, and I let myself sigh into it. My chest felt full, heavy with emotion even if all I felt was ecstasy and relief.

"Hey, Amu?" Ikuto asked, and I felt his hand lay over mine.

I turned to him, cheeks tinged pink but it was too dark to tell. "Hmm?"

His grin was nothing if not adorable. "I missed you the most."

I blinked owlishly, not understanding. "What... what do you mean?"

He took my hand and let our fingers intertwine, then he brought his other hand up to play with a piece of my hand near my ear. I shivered. "I missed the most. You're the main reason I came back. We left a lot unfinished." Before I could even ask what, I felt his hand curl around to the top of my head much like it did four or five years ago. And his lips pressed gingerly into my cheek, but even that had a lot of meaning, like it did on Tokyo Tower all those years ago.

Before I could even react, he pulled back to look at me fully, his hands now grasping either side of my face. I held his gaze openly, completely stupefied. "Ikuto... what are you-"

"Can I kiss you?" He asked gently, his thumbs brushing the soft spots under and behind my ears, making me shiver and freeze up.

"Uh..." I said oh-so brilliantly, completely amazed. I blinked up at him, unsure. He was _asking_? I would've laughed at him for that, if I had forgotten he knew this was my first kiss. I blinked a few times, refocusing, before just barely jerking my head forward in what I hoped he conveyed as a nod.

Needing no more of an answer, Ikuto leaned down tortuously slow. I didn't realize the motive until his thumbs brushed against my cheeks as they were heating up the closer he came. His laugh was deep and spine-tingling, almost _seductive_. "You haven't changed." He breathed as his lips just ghosted over mine before sealing them completely. The kiss was gentle and just a notch under innocent. Of course, we were both still very much teenagers. His hands slid a bit lower to just cradle my head, rather than have it caught between his hands. My hands moved up to overlap his, dragging my nails softly up and down the fair skin.

We eventually pulled back before a breath, just barely panting.

"I missed you too. A lot." I sounded drowned, but I didn't care. He knew. He knew just how much I missed him. He pulled me into his lap and left me there. Sometimes he'd kiss my head or play with my fingers, but we just rested there. Finally, I was "grew up", as he said. Old enough for him, at least. Enough to be perfectly content just sitting in his lap and blessing the stars he returned to me, in the most surprising way, and not throwing a fit that he kissed me.

I guess he was waiting for me to become like him, to learn.

Thinking about it, we were a lot a like. Young, we were both hotheaded children who just caused havoc with the best of intentions and stuck our noses in places they didn't belong and had faith when there was none. Now, we were both grown up enough to know to keep quiet for the better and to stop and smell the roses and to just enjoy each other.

"Hey Ikuto?" I said quietly to break our fragile silence of fall wind and the occasional car driving past us.

He looked down at me with a tired and curious expression. "Yeah?"

I stared up at him, and pulled on a smile I hadn't used since I was young. One he would recognize, and one that still seemed to fit my changed face. "What's your secret?"

He froze, recalling when he had promised to tell me his secret and ended up tricking me and biting my ear instead. He was quiet the trickster then, and I assumed he still was, but this time we were both serious.

He just smirked down at me and flicked my forehead. "I already told you."

I glared at him. "Ow. And no, you didn't."

His eyes lifted to the stars and then back to me, soft and warm. I was caught off guard by the expression. A smile that dazzled me and gave me insight to the human being, to the little boy, under this rough and handsome exterior that portrayed a man with little emotion. "White Day." He said simply. "I confessed to you that night, remember? After Tadase had confessed to you."

I did remember that. How could I forget? That night had been on my mind since it happened, never leaving as the hope that lingered in my body chronically always pulled it up.

_What if he did mean it? _

_ What if he really does love you?_

Normally, I'd exile it to the darker recesses of my mind, but now, now I recalled it with welcome. "Yeah, I remember." But, with a huff, I shook my head. "But that was over four years ago, Ikuto. You were seventeen, and you were sick because of Easter. Confessing to a twelve-year-old girl who already had a hard time trusting you wasn't the smartest move. After you left, I assumed you found someone else and that's when I accepted you weren't come back. You were a real surprise tonight." I stared off at the reservoir and wondered... did he still mean it?

I didn't have to ask. His lips lightly touched my cheek and trailed up to my ear. "I know you doubted it then, Amu. I know you're doubting it now, too. But, I'm here. I came back for _you, _because I love you."

I didn't hesitate, didn't miss a beat. "I love you." I repeated on my tongue, before tipping my head up and meeting his eyes. "I love you." It wasn't in response to his confession, it was one of my own. I loved him. Our lips met again in an upside-down, brief kiss, before the wind became nippy and we both crawled into the car through our open windows.

We got home within the next half hour and life began again, for both of us. The separation had been hard for Ikuto, he told me, but he hadn't gone as far as to get himself sick like I had. I stayed the night at the apartment with him that night, a completely innocent night of sleeping in the same bed as the person I loved. Of course, when I fell asleep, I didn't wake up for another eighteen hours. When I was finally conscious, Utau had already called my parents and had to calm down Ikuto who was freaking out thinking I was in a coma or something. I promised him to fix the sleeping habits as best as I could. I had to relay our story to Utau, with a bright red face because she wanted detail, while Ikuto just smirked with me in his lap as his nuzzled my neck.

Things were getting better. Ikuto and I spent lots of time together, and were basically dating without the title. But, two short years later, I turned eighteen and we finally earned that title. Ikuto and I went to school in America, he was going to become a violinist and I was going to become a visual artist, so we both attended Julliard and shared our own apartment over there. Life couldn't have been better. We talked about marriage, kids, and it didn't take long for all of that to come in a whirlwind after college.

Ikuto came back to me, and with him, he brought me back to myself.

And together, we stood strong, bright, and unbreakable despite having already been broken many times before. There was one thing that would never be broken, though:

Us.


End file.
